Madam Speaker, I will just reacquaint my friend across the way, and the one person who applauded her intervention, with the fact that we are debating an amendment from the member for St. Albert—Edmonton, which says the following:
the House decline to give second reading to Bill C-65, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act, as the bill delays the next federal election so that more departing members of Parliament can collect taxpayer-funded pensions, a measure that is particularly offensive at a time when Canadians are struggling due to the NDP-Liberal government’s inflation, carbon tax and housing costs.
I am, of course, speaking, as I said, about the amendment. That would be not only related to the topic, but definitively the most germane thing that one could possibly talk about: that is, the amendment that is presently before the House. The amendment highlights how the efforts by the Liberals to cling to power by their fingernails, by passing a bill to delay the election, are particularly offensive to Canadians, who would like to see the carbon tax end as soon as possible.
Canadians know that the next election will be a carbon tax election. It will provide an opportunity for the Canadian people to make a decision about whether they approve of the NDP-Liberal plan to massively hike the carbon tax in the years ahead or the Conservative plan to scrap the tax, to axe the tax in every region of the country, and for good. That is the choice that Canadians will have in the next election. A confident government would say they are ready for that choice. It would say, let us have that debate. The member for Winnipeg North says he welcomes that debate. It seems that he has more courage than the leader of his party, because the leader of his party and the minister responsible for this bill have put forward a bill to delay that great clash of ideas that will occur in the next election. Whenever the member for Winnipeg North is ready for this conversation and is ready to allow his constituents to rule on this vital question, then I suggest he tell his Prime Minister to scrap Bill C-65 as they are ready for an election.
I can tell colleagues that, on this side of the House, we are ready. We want to let Canadians decide: Do they prefer the radical NDP-Liberal plan to hike the carbon tax, to quadruple the carbon tax, or do they prefer the common-sense Conservative plan to axe the tax everywhere, and for good? I think Canadians will choose to axe the tax, but in any event, we are ready for that debate. We are ready to submit ourselves to the judgment of the Canadian people. Instead, the government, rather than being prepared to submit itself to the common-sense judgment of the common people, wants to be able to delay the election so the Liberals can hang on to their pensions for as long as possible, hang on to power as long as possible, rather than letting the Canadian people decide.
The government will not be able to delay this inevitable carbon tax election forever. When the inevitable carbon tax election comes, Liberals and New Democrats will have to explain the following to the Canadian people: that the very purpose of a carbon tax is to increase costs. That is what even proponents of the carbon tax say it exists to do. The carbon tax exists to make driving one's car more expensive and to make taking that family road trip more expensive, the family road trip that the Minister of Health thinks is going to burn the planet. I think it was notable after that how various people on social media were able to find posts from the Prime Minister about family road trips he has taken. The Prime Minister does not just take family road trips. He travels much greater distances, using more carbon-emitting options than the simple family van. It is another example of “do as I say, not as I do”. Apparently, when everyday Canadians want to spend a few days seeing beautiful parts of our country, putting their kids in the car and travelling places, the Minister of Health thinks that is going to burn the planet. This is the kind of “do as I say, not as I do” radical extremism that we have come to expect from the radical NDP-Liberal coalition government.
Let us be clear. The purpose of a carbon tax, what it is designed to do, is to increase the price of goods so that people will consume those goods less. That is the theory behind the carbon—